Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Thursday March 20, 2014 @03:34PM
from the well-he-paid-his-developer-fees-so-... dept.

itwbennett (1594911) writes "For the past several months Tor developers have unsuccessfully been trying to convince Apple to remove from its iOS App Store what they believe to be a fake and potentially malicious Tor Browser application. According to subsequent messages on the bug tracker, a complaint was filed with Apple on Dec. 26 with Apple reportedly responding on Jan. 3 saying it would give a chance to the app's developer to defend it. More than two months later, the Tor Browser app created by a developer named Ronen is available still in the App Store. The issue came into the public spotlight Wednesday when people involved in the Tor Project took to Twitter to make their concerns heard. Apple did not respond to IDG News Service's request for comment."

The article was pretty slim (even the links to discussion within) on detail as to just WHAT they consider to be adware/spyware about the app...

I would hope that some random person could not an app pulled because of it simply having ads.

The spyware thing is way more a concern - so in what aspect is it spyware? Is it sending back everything you browse to some third party? The problem is that even in that case, I don't know it should necessarily be pulled - that could just be metrics the app developer is collecting. It's shady but not necessarily a reason to pull the app. All of the comments I could see related to being "spyware" were about ads knowing location, but that's not uncommon for ads, and a user can simply deny location services when the are running the app (as I do for any browser I run).

Also of course, there's the claim that the app is a "fake" which would imply it does not actually browse using TOR. It doesn't seem that way from the reviews - those could be faked of course but it seems like you would ALSO see reviews noting it does not work at all. It's not like people do not LOVE to read one-star reviews for an app when they are unhappy for any reason....

It was last updated on Nov. 6 and only one of the three customer reviews so far includes a complaint about how ads are being displayed, with the reviewer noting that the app is very good at what it does otherwise.

vs.

Tor Browser in the Apple App Store is fake. It's full of adware and spyware. Two users have called to complain. We should have it removed.

I think the root cause of the complaint is the Tor Project afraid that this app will tarnish their [adjective] name. You are right that neither the story nor the Tor panic page have anything even mildly resembling evidence of wrongdoing with the app in question.

As often as I am disgusted by Apple, there needs to be some actual evidence of wrongdoing to justify removing an app. None has been presented, so I cannot side with the Torers until they manage to provide some.

"Fake" is definitely the wrong way to describe it ( if it actually does use TOR ), but it definitely makes a bigger impression than "unofficial".

From further reading on the app, it seems that even though "unofficial" does not sound as impressive, it's the better path to taking down this app. The app seems to be using a copyrighted TOR logo without permission, and also linking to the TOR site for support even though that is not owned by the developer.

If they want to pull the app they should note the copyright violations to Apple rather than the vague claims of "spyware" without proof. Apple treats copyright claims very seriously. The developer could put the app back up using a different logo and support link, but that's OK until someone can prove real harm from using the app.

"Tor Browser Bundle" is the name of the official secure browser/Tor app distribution. This app was using the name but was not associated with the creators of the real Tor Browser Bundle at all, and apparently contained advertising and spyware which as well as putting users at risk was damaging the reputation of the official bundle. Since it wasn't open source or audited there is no way to really know how well it worked, but the fact that it had advertising suggests that it was not particularly well designed since adverts themselves leak information about the user.

Apple apparently doesn't treat copyright claims from non-commercial entities very seriously, as evidenced by the bug report. It took people using their personal contacts to get things moving in the end. If the people at Apple who review apps before releasing them to the app store were half way competent they would never have allowed it in the first place. They clearly didn't understand that the claims it was making could't really be true (due to the advertising at the very least) and a quick google would have revealed that the name was ripped off.